Stella McCartney certainly has no need of boasting family credentials, yet her Pre-Fall collection had a rather touching connection with her personal history. “While I was working on it, my dad and the Beatles relaunched the Yellow Submarine movie in a higher quality, and I went to a screening with my dad,” she said, referring to the 50th anniversary of the extraordinary animation movie. “I saw it with completely fresh eyes and I was blown away by the messaging, like ‘All Together Now’ and ‘All You Need Is Love.’ Modern, ahead of their time, these four young men. I was so inspired.” Well, if there’s a designer who doesn’t have to ask for permission to work on that legacy, it’s definitely her.

Feeling, as she explained, that it was time to “come at that family heritage with a different point of view,” McCartney worked on a series of pieces at the heart of the collection directly inspired by Yellow Submarine’s visuals. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds pyrotechnics were rendered as colorful patchwork-printed dancers, happily shimmying on fluid silk jacquard shirts; a sensational fur-free-fur Technicolor coat boasted on the back a jacquard portrait of the Fab Four in their marching uniforms. What mostly intrigued McCartney, though, was the modernity of the movie’s and lyrics’ message; she had sweaters embroidered with All Together Now in multiple languages: “I think it’s so relevant to now, bringing the world together, the people together, breaking down barriers,” she said. “It’s a political conversation, too; we can bring that back to the forefront in a way.”